Startup Systems

Founders are striving to do something more innovative, uncertain, and psychologically demanding than most of us ever try to do—many with potentially large impacts on the world—and yet their distinct psychological needs have gone largely unstudied and unaddressed. And despite the many headlines signaling a “mental health crisis in startups,” with... See more

First Round Capital’s PMF framework consists of four levels: nascent, developing, strong, extreme

1. Level one: Nascent product-market fit. Likely a pre-seed or seed-stage company. The goal in this stage is to find three to five customers with a problem worth solving, engage with them, deliver a solution, and validate that solution. [examples: Vanta,

... See more

The only reason you need venture capital is if (a) the technology is too expensive and you cannot self-fund it or (b) your product is going to catch fire too quickly. If done correctly, crossing the chasm should be inexpensive. Strive for cash-flow-positive and aim to change the value state of your company to attract investors and avoid constant... See more

if the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) gains traction, then the company will likely receive funding and a growth period will occur. Invariably, that means more people will join the team and the vision from the initial engineer needs to be shared.

Early on, when the team is small (2–15 people), typically processes are loose as the overhead in aligning... See more

• Trust : Does the product work the way your user is expecting it to? Do they have to second-guess their interactions? Or, considered another way, is it clear that you trust the user to be able to complete tasks without error?


• Purpose : Do your users know why they’re there? Are their behaviors clearly tied to customer, business, or their personal

... See more

It’s easy to be excited about what the company seems to do... to choose our path based on the public’s perception of the output. But once the company has more than one person in it, most of our day is about satisfying the customer, meeting supplier requirements and dancing with the tension of doing our jobs.

Often, we use the product we make as a... See more